---
title: I may be wrong, but I should have thought that friendship, true frie… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: I may be wrong, but I should have thought that friendship, true friendship, was quite free from selfishness of any kind.’ Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/4/110/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Happy Prince, and Other Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/) / [Opening, part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/4/) / 110

# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 4, sentence 110

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
I may be wrong, but I should have thought that friendship, true friendship, was quite free from selfishness of any kind.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** be, think · **To what, where:** friendship, selfishness

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg902:4:110
# text = I may be wrong, but I should have thought that friendship, true friendship, was quite free from selfishness of any kind.’
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	cop	_	_
4	wrong	wrong	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	aux	_	_
10	thought	think	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	conj	_	_
11	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	12	det	_	_
12	friendship	friendship	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	true	true	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	friendship	friendship	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
18	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	free	free	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	conj	_	_
20	from	from	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	selfishness	selfishness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	24	det	_	_
24	kind	kind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | may | I |  |  |  |  | wrong *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | should · perfect | I | that friendship and true friendship |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot friendship=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past | I *not said here* |  |  | selfishness of any kind |  | free *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Project Gutenberg book 902 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 109](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/4/109/)
- next →: [sentence 111](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/4/111/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/4/)